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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23699647">Hearing You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewsdaychillin/pseuds/chewsdaychillin'>chewsdaychillin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Childhood Trauma, Class Differences, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, apocalypse idk her, childhood and school memories, i hate martins parents so much i hate them, its ok theres fluff at the end, north/south divide, overuse of uk specific school words i will explain promise, references to mag118, regional accent discourse lmao, safehouse, scotland honeymoon, so sadly there is one elias mention sorry, the inherent romance of your lovers voice, uk class accent discourse but make it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:35:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23699647</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewsdaychillin/pseuds/chewsdaychillin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There are lots of reasons people lose their accents, and lots of reasons why they might not want to talk about it. But Jon keeps asking. And they're getting better at talking.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>700</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hearing You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hey :) before we get into this angst im just gonna attempt to explain some stuff lol there is some uk specific school language that i use in this. the issues around accents and class and education in the uk are all a bit nuanced and there is a lot going on but hopefully this is helpful: </p><p>state schools are our public schools - free, anyone in the catchment area (ie they live near it) can go. </p><p>grammar schools were free schools that took students by how well they did on an entrance exam they took at the end of primary school when they were 11. the test was called the 11+. grammar schools were seen as better because you got in off this test </p><p>comprehensive is like another word for state school - it means a free co-ed regular schools </p><p>we also have private schools (the poshest of which are ironically called public schools - stay with me here lol) like harrow or eton which are super posh and expensive. </p><p>we have a weird history with looking down on people who have regional and particularly northern accents - there's stereotypes and just generally a snobby sense that the rp/bbc/queens english/southern accent is better. it's a class thing but also an education thing and a political thing. a whole thing. when i refer to stats of people changing their accents to get jobs or to seem more intelligent or to avoid being stereotyped that sadly still happens. </p><p> </p><p>im headcanoning that martin's from stockport which is just outside manchester bc thats where alex's accent is from or very near. it's pretty weak but that is the whole premise of this piece so🤷🏼 (also my mum is from there :)</p><p> </p><p>in terms of the childhood trauma im not really doing anymore than we hear in mag118, but im applying it to accent stuff. </p><p> </p><p>right enough rambling lets get into the pain.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon likes Scotland, he decides quite quickly. It’s peaceful and the air is thin and fresh. It’s quiet. He only has to talk to Martin. Has all this free space and sky and a cozy cabin in which he <em>gets </em>to only talk to Martin. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And the few villagers, ever couple of days. They both talk to the shopkeepers and little old ladies and farmers and farmers’ children when they pop down the shops or the phone box. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Hearing their lilting voices all around has brought out Martin’s accent. Everyone seem to like talking to him and Jon likes hearing it - with its slow, broad ‘oh’s and it’s heavy, two-syllable ‘ing’s. He imagines this is how Martin talked in his classrooms, in his old living room, before the move down South. It feels like he’s hearing something real, a part of history. It’s not something he’s heard on a tape. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin laughs when Jon points it out. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Just stop me before I get as incomprehensible as that guy runs the butchers.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘No, I won’t stop you,’ Jon frowns at how easily its authenticity is dismissed. He curls his hand tighter round Martin’s arm as they walk back up to the house that’s quickly become referred to as <em>home</em>. ‘I think it’s nice.’  </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Well. Thank you.’ </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He brings it up again, sometime later. He’s curious every time he hears it jump out. (‘Just because it’s chilly doesn’t mean you won’t get sunburnt’, ‘aren’t you knackered?’, ‘do we need another?’) But he thinks it’s his normal curiosity that he’s always had and always has with Martin. It doesn’t burn like the desire, like the chase of needing to Know; it’s a steeping, comforting interest.. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Did you lose it on purpose?’ He asks one evening, as Martin is doing a crossword and asking him about prime numbers. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He tries not to sound too despondent at the idea. He knows it’s complicated. But he likes the way Martin says <em>numbers.</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Or tone it down, I mean.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Well, it was never the strongest. My mum’s from down South so.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Oh, really?’ He tries his best to keep his voice light though the resentment that threatens to trickle in at the mention of her.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah,’ Martin says, scratching down half an answer, ‘it was my dad who was proper Mancunian. But obviously-’ he shrugs, waves his hand. Doesn’t need to finish the sentence<em>.</em> ‘I mean,’ he goes on, wiping the page of angry eraser crumbs, ‘most people lose their accents a bit when they move to London.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon watches him going at his mistakes hard with the greying rubber and wonders if asking again is the best idea. There’s something to talk about. There’s a bit of prickle round the edges that tells him there’s something more to come out and he wants to talk about it. It seems healthy to. Not just for his sake, at all. He wants <em>them</em> to be healthy, together. The same want that makes him cook his mediocre dinners and do the dishes and put Martin’s socks on the radiator while he’s in the shower makes him want to ask. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He presses on it very gently, tip-toeing around the neutrons he knows will itch to fire static on the question. ‘It wasn’t on purpose?’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Not entirely. I mean, I’d be lying if I said I <em>tried </em>to keep it.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin sighs when he looks up, sees Jon's fallen face. He puts the pencil down, gets up from the table and joins Jon heavily on the sofa with the creaking of springs and flump of cushions. His jumper scratches as he sidles up so his back is in Jon’s lap, head against his chest, and he hums when Jon folds his arms over him, folds his own on top in a floppy pile. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A moment is given to the comfort but then he starts again, talking straight forward. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I needed a job,’ Martin explains. ‘A proper one, you know? And I was already lying on my CV, so... I mean I’m not going to try and sound <em>more </em>Northern am I? It doesn’t tend to help. Statistically.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘But that’s-' Jon starts, brow creased tight, 'I mean-’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah, obviously it’s bad,' Martin finishes for him. 'Didn’t matter so much when I was up North still but, you know - London,' he says, holding his hands up like the word is up on a billboard. 'Prestigious institute. I was supposed to have a masters, you know. And what do people with a masters sound like? It’s a bit crap but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Mum used to say ‘people’ll judge you if you don’t enunciate’,’ he goes on quickly, sensing the cold look on Jon’s face without needing to see it, ‘it’s harsh, yeah, but. She was right. Anyway...’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He trails off and Jon goes to put a hand in his hair, but he changes tact before it lands, huffs out a couple of short laughs. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘And - I mean, Christ, Jon you sounded so bloody Eton back then I wasn’t in a hurry to dial it up.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon decides to give him the joke, let them move on. He rolls his eyes. ‘Eton? Give me <em>some</em> credit. I didn’t even get into Bournemouth grammar.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin turns around at that and his eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘<em>You </em>went to a <em>state </em>school?’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Mhm. Dodgy comprehensive.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘No way!’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yes! Though-’ he allows, ‘that was mainly because I failed the eleven-plus.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘<em>You </em>failed the eleven-plus?!’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I didn’t like revising.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin sighs and gives his knee a sharp pat when he admits that 'my grandma wasn't very happy about it, only other place in the catchment wasn't the best, but they wouldn't let me resit.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They laugh about that for a second, about Jon, eleven and scrawny in long grey shorts and a choking charity-shop tie. They laugh until it fades out and they're back at the beginning in the glum, understanding quiet. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I get it,' Jon says, twisting Martin's hair round one finger gently, 'I mean, obviously I don’t <em>understand,’ </em>he continues, shifting awkwardly under the weight of an uncomfortable privilege.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The only thing he has to worry about people assuming from <em>his </em>accent is that he’s insufferable or pretentious, and most of his life that’s been largely true. He remembers talking to Georgie about it at uni - how she’d felt diminished and excluded in the old stone halls of Oxford. Even <em>he </em>hadn’t had quite the boarding school childhood a lot of them had, didn’t have a father to call when things got difficult. But being raised by an eighty-year-old had given him an appreciation of what she had called being ‘well-spoken’, and he knows he sounds it. He can’t imagine feeling like every word gave him away as not belonging. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I know I... Well.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah,’ Martin smiles, reaching up for his hand and bringing it down to play with. ‘You do a bit. But I know what you mean. You don’t exactly sound the same as you used to either.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘No. No, well I,’ he sighs, getting it now and hearing the irony, ‘I wanted to sound professional.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Suppose we both poshed up a bit then.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">'Yes I suppose.' </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">'I like your voice now,' Martin says, kissing his hand. 'Sounds like you.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon smiles and goes pink as he still always does when Martin shimmies round and drops a peck on his smiling mouth. The genuine compliment, the feeling seen, <em>heard</em>, is enough to distract him from the topic for another few days. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then the nice lady who runs the library (and who has had an incident with the corruption Jon is trying very, very hard to ignore) gets curious for him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Where are you from, sweetheart?’ She asks as she stamps their novels and maps and a couple of DVDs, and the confidence in Martin’s voice when he tells her ‘Stockport, but we’re up from London’ sounds so nice around the vowels, so much warmer and happier than he sounded talking about his old home and his parents before.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon wants to hear him talk about it more, to help him flush all the bitterness out so he can say it that happily every time. Wants to call him ‘sweetheart’ too without any embarrassment and have the kind of smile in it that makes it comfortable to share things. He knows he can’t fix the past, obviously, can’t go back and shake Martin’s shitty parents and tell them <em>do better, </em>much as his fists would love to<em>. </em>But he wants to listen and be good at it. Wants to <em>hear</em> him, whatever it is he needs to say</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So he does ask again. On the road back from the library when they’re clinging to piles of books like they did in the very beginning. It’s probably not his best timing, and Martin throws Jon a suspicious look as he half-laughs, awkward, watching the muddy track for where to put his feet. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Are you really that interested?’ He asks, like he doesn’t believe it. ‘It’s just my voice,’ he shrugs, like that isn’t the world. ‘It’s not- I mean it’s not rocket science.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Sorry,’ Jon says lamely, ‘I’m just interested. It feels like there’s...’ He takes a deep breath, knowing how it’s going to sound. He sounds it out anyway, and only hopes it might be cathartic. ‘Something else. That you’re not saying.'</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin tuts at him. ‘Oh, don’t do that, come on-‘</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘No, no I’m not. It’s not that, it’s just,’ Jon sighs. He feels like he's wrestling with a complicated knot in his throat, the rope of it raspy, fibres poking out and scratching at odd angles. ‘We don’t have to talk about it, I don’t <em>need </em>to know. I just- I think there’s something you aren’t telling me, and that’s fine,’ he hurries to say, ‘it is, but. I-I want you to know, to feel like you can tell me. Can talk about it. If you want to.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Oh,’ Martin nods, ‘well that’s, that’s good. Thanks.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He keeps walking, watching his boots. Jon keeps walking next to him, trying not to look like he’s watching Martin think, watching the lines around the corners of his mouth dither and wrestle with the opportunity. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Um,’ Martin says, and Jon looks down before he’s caught. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t want a statement, doesn’t want to watch. The silence is heaving to be filled but he tries to put the need of it down. He watches martin’s feet instead - even, not stumbling even as his breathing is heavier.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">'Did you listen to the tape?’ Martin asks him slowly. ‘The one... when you were away. At the unknowing. The one where Elias... where I talked to Elias..? </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">'Yes,’ Jon admits, ‘not because I wanted to, not...' he swallows. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It had been a horrible experience, listening to it, and he'd not been sure which part of him he hated more: the monster that had itched to press play or the human that had missed Martin enough to give into it. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">'Well then,’ Martin says. ‘You know then, don’t you?'</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He stops walking and looks at Jon fully. The line of his brows, of the usually smiling crows feet round his eyes, are set with something like a grudging finality. But there is something scared in the whites of his eyes. He looks vulnerable and Jon wishes he didn’t borrow so many bloody books so he could hold his hand and squeeze it. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He doesn’t know, and when he thinks about it, tries to understand, all it brings up is the awful memory of hearing Martin cry through the little tinny speakers. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I don’t- uh...’ He frowns, ‘I don’t think I understand?’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘You want me to tell you?’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Not like that, no! Just. If <em>you</em> want to.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A sheep bleats in the breathing pause. Then Martin steps off again into it and slowly, cautiously, as though afraid of disturbing it, he starts to fill it. Jon follows tentatively half a yard behind him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘It was when dad left. I mean I didn’t have the <em>strongest </em>accent in the world but there’s tapes, not with my dad in, obviously, those are all long gone, but of me and... You <em>can</em> hear the difference. When he left and I went to secondary school mum just suddenly became <em>so</em> interested in pronunciation. She’d never been a snob before, but then she was saying I’d do better in school if I talked - you know - ‘more clearly’. I wouldn’t be as shy about presentations and orals and stuff. I think- I <em>thought</em> she thought it would help, you know? And the whole ‘employability’ thing, obviously.’ He huffs, a bitter, sharp laugh of irony. Holding the books tight to his chest, he pitches his voice up, cruelly prim. ‘’You sound so funny when you say ‘bath’ like that'.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He looks down and Jon feels a sharp stab of guilt at having thought the exact same thing, with a fondness that now seems spoiled. Martin is still walking out ahead of him but he stops, feet sinking loudly into the mud. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘You know,’ Martin is saying, ‘cruel to be kind, but...’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon finishes it for him with a sickening blankness. ‘It’s because you sounded like him.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin doesn’t turn around. ‘Yeah,’ he says flatly. He sounds almost acidic but not like a bite, not like venom meant to attack, but like it’s burning up his own tongue, like he’s spitting it out. ‘She couldn’t stand the way I look, couldn’t stand the way I talk. So.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon’s hands are trembling. With anger, of course, with a righteous and searing rage that threatens to jump out of his mouth for the first few wrestled seconds. But with more. With grief. Vicarious aching pain for the man in front of him, for the child that kind man was, that knocks any energy he’d have for shouting out of his chest. And a heartbreak that’s all his own, for not being able to do anything to make it better. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He might well drop the books. He puts them down on the soft verge to the side of them, not a thought for the mud, and tries to keep his hands and voice steady. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘So you dropped it.’ He states more than asks - letting it be a prompt or a full-stop, whatever’s right. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah.’ Martin blows out an unsteady breath and shrugs, readjusts his grip on the books. ‘It was ages ago. So.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He says it with the tone of giving oneself a little shake. Words quietly lowly, promising they’ll pull themselves together, deferential to the fact they ought to be over it. They are over it, the words promise. But his shoulders keep going up and down and up and down. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon shuffles forward, just a bit but his shoes squelch in the mud. Martin rubs his nose against his shoulder, sniffs as he hears the noise approaching and Jon stops again. His own nose is threatening to run as he tries to say the comforting thing whilst trying not to think about it. If he thinks about it - </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘You were just a kid,’ he says, and his voice cracks a little. </span>
</p><p class="p3">‘Yeah.’ </p><p class="p3">Martin turns round and the worst thing to see on his face would be tears - Jon's not sure he could bear seeing him cry, could barely handle hearing it - but there’s only awkwardness and guilt. He shrugs, shuffles, and it’s not worse but it’s still agonising.</p><p class="p3">He’s been so much happier since they’ve got away, had, if not a confidence, then a presence that he’d never had, or never worn properly as himself without meddling. Even when he’d faded into the walls when he was working on his plot for Peter he’d had a clarity in his voice, asking ‘<em>what do you want?’</em> and knowing what <em>he </em>wanted. He’d taken up the space he needed to make that work, had taken up a stick and drawn a line in the sand.</p><p class="p3">Now he looks as small as he ever has, smaller even than his very first day. His flexing, fidgeting hands far from the sweaty but strong ones that had taken Jon’s and shaken it when he’d said good morning. </p><p class="p3">He stuffs them in his pockets now, twists them into the lining as he worms his way through his explanations, excuses. Jon isn’t sure whether he’s trying to communicate it or to trying to understand himself.</p><p class="p3">‘I mean it’s- it’s more nuanced than that, than just dropping something,’ he’s saying, quick and unsure, ‘I wasn’t lying before. I mean I was, what, ten? I didn’t know about, like, class discourse or anything. I just wanted my mum to be happy.’</p><p class="p3">He sniffs, then groans and stubbornly pushes a fist under his nose, forcing it not to run. A few breaths then he huffs and tries again. It comes out cracked and croaked.</p><p class="p3">‘And it’s not as if she beat it out of me.’</p><p class="p3">‘No,’ Jon says gently, swallowing a shaky gasp and wanting nothing more than to hold him.</p><p class="p3">The urge to do it, to step towards him, close the gap and pull Martin into his chest and hold him there forever is marrow-deep. But he doesn’t want to push it. Instead he takes just another small step and takes the books that are threatening to slip out of Martin’s hands. Takes the responsibility from him and lays it down next to the other stack.</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘But it happened,’ he says, in that same soft voice that he’s learning he has. </span>
</p><p class="p3">Then he goes back, doesn’t move, holds tight to his sleeves to stop himself reaching out. Martin can close the gap when he’s ready. If he wants to. It won’t come a moment too soon.</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah,’ Martin says, his shoulders sagging. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘And that’s... bad.’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah,’ Martin scoffs. His waterline is red, the corners puffy. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘And real.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘And,’ Jon starts, but he can’t think of anything better. ‘And it’s alright.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The gap finally closes. Warm arms fold around him with the starchy creak of waterproofs, and unsteady hands run instantly up his back, down again as they squeeze him through their shaking. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah,’ Martin gulps into Jon’s collar, wet mouth sinking into his anorak and finding knit underneath it. His breathing is ragged and hitching as he forces it even. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘It’s alright.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Yeah,’ he breathes, nose wet in the crook of Jon’s neck. ‘Thank you...’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jon’s arms curl around his waist and hold on like there’s nothing else to hold. His gratitude, always, for the barest minimum is as awful to recognise in someone else as it is easy for Jon to understand. It makes him ache every time to squeeze Martininto believing he’s the best thing for miles, into knowing that the answer every time is only ever going to be <em>‘of course.’ </em>It makes him think of the question Martin had posed through the fog - <em>‘why?’ - </em>genuinely confused, and his answer when they’d left and curled up by the fire to shake it.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He curls his fingers in tighter, feeling salt burning the corners of his eye. There are tears sticking to his neck as Martin shudders in his arms and his eyes spill over. Tear tracks run down his cheeks at that off pace of raindrops chasing down a window and he wants to say that same answer again and again and again. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I love you,’ he promises. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Thank you...’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘It’s alright... you’re alright...’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They go round in the circle for a few more times, quieter and quieter until its just susurrations of the same. And once more for good measure, murmured into hair, into shoulders, until eventually Martin breathes out a few millimetres of space between them.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I love you too,’ he says in a snotty whisper. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His shoulders are finally still and he pulls away sniffing, his swollen eyes drying out. The same sheep bleats in the field behind them and an awkward smile twitches on his face at the noise. He wipes his eyes and Jon thinks they’re ready now. He takes Martin’s hands in both his own. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I-I know it isn’t,’ he says, ‘and I know it isn’t at <em>all</em> the same. But if it’s any consolation, I... I like the way you talk.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin finally smiles, gives his hands a little squeeze. ‘Thanks.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">'I really do,’ Jon insists, ‘I- not in a weird way, I hope, just. It’s you.’ He swallows and tries again, fumbling with words that hold ideas too big for his mouth. ‘I used to- when you were... busy, away, I used to listen to old statements you’d recorded just to hear your voice.' </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Really?’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Really.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Martin pulls him into another hug, arms round his shoulders, swaying gently with feet stuck in the mud. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I did that too,’ he says. ‘I used to do that too when you were gone and I guess I hoped... I hope you wanted to hear me.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘I did. I do. I do want to hear you.’ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The tug of stillness growing comfortable eases them back into walking, books held under arms. They keep on hand in hand until their front door is closed behind them. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Later, full and warmed to the marrow by the fire, Martin will read a chapter aloud for no reason other than it’s interesting and they like the sound of it over the crackling and creaking. Jon will tell him he likes the way he reads, the way he says ‘ask’ and ‘murmur’. The way he says ‘Jon’ and ‘Jonathan’ and ‘darling’ and ‘I love you’. Martin will kiss him as he hands over the book. Tell him he likes the way he says ‘class’ and ‘market’ and ‘Martin’, with or without the hard ’t’. Likes the way he’s trying ‘sweetheart’ and ‘love’. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They will kiss the words goodnight and sleep on them and it won’t come up again until Jon guesses wrong at the crossword a few mornings later. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">‘Oh,’ he’ll ask, ‘is it not Bath Spa?’</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And Martin will laugh as he kisses him like marmalade, tell him the answer is Reading and teasingly say -  ‘that comprehensive really was dodgy wasn’t it? Let you get away with saying Bath like that.’ </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading n sticking with me :) interested to hear everyone's thoughts as always </p><p>im on tumblr @babyyodablackwood x</p></blockquote></div></div>
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